The present invention relates to a device for lifting the skin and loading a poultry part into a skinning machine and in particular for loading a poultry breast fillet into a poultry breast fillet skinning machine.
A poultry breast fillet skinner is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,127,812 issued on Jul. 7, 1992 to Koch, et al. This patent, which is incorporated herein by reference, discloses a device for removing the skin from a poultry breast fillet. When separated from the remainder of the poultry carcass, the poultry breast fillet comprises the two halves of the poultry breast covered by and connected by the associated skin and cartilage. In order to remove the skin, the invention disclosed in the cited patent relies on the existence of pockets which are formed between the skin and the two halves of the breast fillet. These pockets are due to certain areas along each of the two halves of the breast fillet wherein the skin is loosely attached. The invention of the cited patent comprises a table, a lower conveyer supported on the table, an upper conveyer with means to allow the upper conveyer to be pressed down toward the lower conveyer so as to firmly grip the poultry breast fillet, and a wing disposed between the upper and lower conveyers which effects the separation of the skin from the poultry breast fillet. The wing, which provides the skin separation action, has a pair of forward-pointing projections which initiate the skin separation process when the projections are inserted into the described pockets formed between the skin and the two halves of the breast fillet. The projections widen toward the discharge end of the mechanism so that the skin is gradually separated from the breast portion as the breast fillet travels through the machine. The pair of forward-facing projections gradually widen toward the discharge end of the machine finally defining a narrow, sharp edged slot. The sharp edges of the slot severe the remaining connection of the skin to the breast fillet allowing the skinned breast fillet and the skin to be discharged separately.
The invention of the cited patent provides a means of skinning poultry breast fillets, or any type of poultry part which exhibits a pocket of the sort described, which greatly reduces the number of human operators required to perform the skinning operation. Nevertheless, a human operator and a certain amount of skill is required to position the poultry breast fillet onto the skinning machine by locating, forming and placing the pockets onto the forward-facing projections of the skinning machine.
A need, therefore, exists for a device to perform this loading operation with greater speed and uniformity in results than would be possible with a human operator.
Furthermore, many types of poultry skinning machines would benefit from a device which has the capability of lifting the skin from a poultry part and initiating the pulling away of the skin from the meat portion in order to efficiently automate the skinning process.